I'm a staff writer at Forbes, where until recently I chased the super-rich for our Forbes 400 and World's Billionaires lists. Now I'm covering the consumer economy, writing about the big personalities reinventing retail. Before Forbes, I worked as a news reporter in the UK and my home country of Bermuda, a travel writer for Frommer's and an intern for CNN's Anderson Cooper while completing a master's degree at Columbia University. Got a story idea? Email me at coconnor@forbes.com.

Pierre Omidyar (Photo: Michelle Clement) is behind a $115 million push to end trafficking. Click for more photos.

Pierre Omidyar looked out over Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley this past February, scanning the horizon with his camera in hand. All the billionaire eBay founder could see for miles were huge, belching chimneys taller than houses and mountains of red bricks drying in the winter sun. Kids of 12 or 13 lugged bricks on their backs to and from these ovens, 80 pounds at a time. Ninety percent of the workers here in Bhaktapur, the heart of Nepal’s brick sector, are slaves. Day after day they incur more debt to the traffickers who found them these jobs and hovels to live in nearby.

As Omidyar walked around snapping photos, he grew more certain that he wasn’t seeing the whole picture. “They don’t let people like us visit the bad kilns,” he says. “I extrapolated. If this is one of the good ones, what does a bad one look like?”

It’s a question he’s trying to make permanently moot. Omidyar and his wife, Pam, are taking their considerable fortune and business acumen and deploying them in an ambitious effort to end modern-day slavery. Nepal, they’ve decided, will be their case study; success would have global ramifications.

This means creating Omidyar-funded options so that Bhaktapur’s children won’t feel compelled to sign the human traffickers’ bogus, exploitative contracts. First up: a $600,000 grant that will pay for 2,500 working kids to leave the dangerous, dirty Nepalese kilns and go to school. Next the Omidyars plan to pay for entrepreneurship and money management training to help 4,000 more brick workers escape slavery.

In the past four years the Omidyars have become the single biggest private donors to the fight against the pernicious but lucrative human trafficking industry. They’ve invested $115 million to date in their Humanity United foundation, which funds 85 antislavery nonprofits as well as on-the-ground projects in five countries, including this first one in Nepal. They’ve pledged to spend another $50 million by 2016.

They’re up against increasingly sophisticated sex and labor trafficking rings, many backed by organized crime, in a business that generates $32 billion in worldwide revenues a year, according to the UN. But the Omidyars have recruited powerful partners that stand the best chance to date to win the battle.

When eBay went public in 1998, Pierre Omidyar “skipped ‘regular rich’ and went straight to ‘ridiculous rich,’ ” he says. He and Pam, a molecular scientist and his college sweetheart from Tufts, decided immediately that they’d give the vast majority of their wealth away within their lifetimes (they’ve since signed the Giving Pledge). Both just 31 then and worth more than $7 billion, it was a serious, overwhelming proposition. It took a few early years of earnest, scattershot check-writing across a handful of charities before they focused on trafficking as a target.

Humanity United was Pam’s idea. While Pierre expanded his auction site into a multibillion-dollar public company, she spent her days holed up in a UC Santa Cruz biology lab doing pharmaceutical research for her master’s degree, rarely surfacing to read the news. “I insulated myself against world events,” she says. During a stay in Pierre’s birth city of Paris in the early 2000s, she had time to flip through a National Geographic and landed on a piece about Darfur, at the time descending into civil war. She was horrified at the stories of Sudanese child soldiers and trafficked refugees. She did some digging but couldn’t find much coverage of modern-day slavery in the press or any evidence of attention from rich philanthropists.

Pam and Pierre Omidyar (Photo: Michele Clement)

Pam decided the couple’s donations to charities like Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam, however generous, were no longer cutting it. Pierre was immediately on board. Sudan would join Nepal on the list of countries they eventually chose to focus their cash on first, along with Congo, Liberia and the U.S., where more than 40,000 women, men and kids are being held as sex slaves, unpaid domestic workers or forced field hands at any given time.

The Omidyars decided they wouldn’t start from scratch unless they absolutely had to. In the U.S. they found a smattering of disparate antislavery NGOs, most of them small and working in isolation. In Florida evangelicals from the faith-based International Justice Mission were trying to free Mexican tomato pickers from forced labor with a group called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. In California social workers from the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking were working to free women trapped in domestic servitude in Los Angeles, as well as monitoring a growing problem of unpaid farm laborers upstate. Both groups were lobbying for the same antitrafficking legislation with little funding and no cooperation.

Pierre, Pam and their team at Humanity United found the best of these U.S. antislavery nonprofits, grouped them under one umbrella–the Alliance to End Slavery & Trafficking–and invested $8 million across all 12 of them. They didn’t meddle much, trusting that the new group would know best how to make a joint case to Congress to pass a raft of laws.

It’s the same tenet Pierre remembers invoking as a twentysomething computer programmer: Give someone the right tools and the benefit of the doubt, and they’ll rarely screw you. (It was, he recalls, rather tougher to convince the jaded tech press that his new auction platform wouldn’t be overrun with cheaters and counterfeiters.) “In the early days of eBay I articulated for the very first time this belief that people are basically good,” he says. “Ebay’s success as a company depends on the success of the community of sellers.”

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Pierre Omidyar’s a billionaire for what?? All the humble people who made eBay a success and made him what he is are now downtrodden by the current eBay regieme. Pierre’s humanitarian efforts go unnoticed when this douchebag let the company he founded become the biggest cash grab for corporate America.

What a cute couple. They look good together. & I love e-bay. I just purchased a few things yesterday. & I got a bid in now. Here & there bid.

But how America lives effects everything. Humanity has become desperately abusive unto itself. In America we have abandoned everything that makes humanity healthy. & that matters. Things like true religious tolerance matter.

World wide culture really centers around theft. Liberalism in America is based on theft of property. & they will destroy us to be able to get it too. They have & we have let them. & now there is a lack of compassion world wide which allows these things like human trafficking to happen.

In a sound America, in a sound society, there is no theft. There is no welfare & everyone is happy, healthy & safe. Why? Because when a person knows that they will not get a free ride they work & care for what they have. When people begin to care for what they have, they begin to care for their communities. When people care for their communities, they care for their nation. & the world.

Humanity right now is a very sick institution by its practices. America has abandoned everything that works. The world has fallowed her. & here we are getting more desperate & more depraved.

I will be advocating for nation wide civil rebellion in America. & a return to private property rights, natural rights, & true religious tolerance. There is only one path to recovery that works. & that is for Te American People to lead.

It is wonderful that he is helping the poor children of Nepal but the I think unless the international community realize that the root of Nepal’s problem lies with the political elites, this will be merely a gesture just to feel good and not solve the problem. I am sure they are thousands of other children waiting to take their place at the brick factories. In the meantime, the Communists and the other political leaders are intoxicated by power and greed to do anything about the poor Nepalese people. Instead, why don’t we all work to get rid of these corrupt leaders. Nepal needs leaders with vision and honesty. Jai Nepal!!

I am a sole proprietor with my store on eBay. That the company which is the supporter and foundation of my store stands up to, and actually does something about human trafficking gives me a full heart. What great news! Keep up the good fight!

This is great news. As a sole proprietor with my store on eBay, it fills my heart to know that the founder of the site, which is the foundation of my business, is supporting efforts to eradicate human trafficking! Bravo!

What’s outrageous is that in this day and age anybody should be a billionaire. It is truly offensive when there are so many people in America who barely have enough money to buy the necessities of life.

The reality of it is : Pierre can’t help anybody. Sure, people will take his money and tell him he’s accomplishing something good with it, and yes, he gets a guilt-free good night’s sleep out of it. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Pierre already REALLY helped hundreds of thousands of Americans (suddenly) be able to afford to live stress free for the first time EVER. Pierre did it HIMSELF. No Middle Men. And he felt GREAT about his accomplishment, as well he should. Pierre’s mistake was inviting the “Big Wigs” in to commandeer Ebay. It totally didn’t turn out as he thought it would. Now, he’s powerless to do anything about it. So, now, our good lives (brief as they were) are gone again and we’re back to that “paycheck to paycheck” nightmare they told us would end when we got older and more established. Ebay, for us, was like walking through the Pearly Gates of economic Heaven. It’s what America was all about, the promise finally realized. Now it’s all gone. The keystone to it all was the Postal Money Order. That’s it. One Simple piece of paper. Now, sellers can not put the words “We accept Postal Money Orders”, and “We do not accept PayPal” in their listings. PayPal is now NOTORIOUS for putting people out of business literally overnight. But it is FORCED onto Ebay sellers. It makes no business sense at all. So, keep staring at the brick-toting babies, you can’t / won’t REALLY help them either Pierre.

I have several hundred pages of code in a folder in my archives of where eBay, under Pierre’s leadership, stole code from my site and used it to make his fortune. eBay motors, to this day, is running on some of my code. Can I do anything about that? No. I tried to get representation, but no one can fight the giant. I should be the billionaire, by rights. eBay SCREWED me.

dear sir. how are you?sir you are looking parsnalted man.sir i am and my family is to much poor.sir i want any job in your andstery or any where.please sir or if you can help me money for start my smoll business as a stor.please sir. thank you sir. God bless you and family. nadeem (n_masih@ymail.com)

Help deaf people to give them an opportunity to study. In the city of Poltava, Ukraine, we have opened the first training courses for deaf people in the following: nails augmentation, sculpting, manicures, pedicures, a basic course of painting, Chinese painting, make-up, aqua make-up, hair styles, and hair styles with color strands, flowers, augmentation and design eyelashes, hair augmentation, hair removal. We constantly continue adding new other courses. Our instructor learned the sign language to deliver qualitative information to the deaf people. Now we really need help with a good room – a place for educating the deaf people. We want to make good classes in which deaf people will be trained. We also want to help them with searching for jobs. And we want to make subsidized training for deaf people, so that they could study for FREE. Despite the fact that we require a large sum of 95,000 USD, we know that it is possible, if everyone will make its own contribution. Every nine people on the planet have hearing disorders. Let us help these people together to obtain a good profession. Here is the bank account to which you can transfer some money to help us to organize the to help the Private Bank 5211537316474704 Oleg Butenko. If your heart is kind, and you have decided to help, please tell me, your name, country and city, so that we can write in a book, which will be located at the entrance to the training center. Each person will be able to see in this book, the names of the people who have given their finances and made possible the work of this training center. If you want to make a donation in secret, we will appreciate your input very much. I will also send you a report on the work and the opening of the training center. If it is possible, please forward this email to your friends. Thank you! Yours faithfully, Natalia Butenko Director and training instructor of the center “Eden” Phone: +38-050-637-26-44 Address: Poltava, street Frunze, 145 edem.poltava@mail.ru www.krasa.jimdo.com

If this article wasn’t so pathetic, it would be funny. He started his company IN America, but I don’t see any place where he helps American citizens who truly need help. We have many seniors who could use help. Nutrition centers, food pantries, free medical and dental clinics, etc.

Ebay was a great site and then…..the more people went to ebay, the more he raised the prices. It isn’t just his money. It’s all the loyal sellers and buyers on ebay that made him what he is. Keeping some of his wealth in local communities would be more impressive than trying to impress the world. It is sad so many ‘billionaires’ give more to foreign causes than their own home country. An ego is a great thing I guess. In Pierre’s case, it is hypocrisy at it’s finest.

All people ever do is criticize and complain whenever someone tries to do something positive, to the best of that person’s current level of consciousness. Any system that is designed to raise public awareness or improve the human experience is ALWAYS infiltrated by the elite, when said system is put into practice and working – eBay is no exception.

After the elite takes over and perverts the system – whether it be religious, scientific or political – everything within said system is then directed toward the interest of the elite and elite only.

The reason why the elite is having so much success is because the rest of the population sits on their behinds and waits for someone to do all the work or come up with new ideas. When such a person surfaces, their ideas are usually rejected by the same people who complain but can come up with any ideas of their own.

SEPARATION is THE main cause of ALL our problems because the people bluntly refuse to stand together with one voice and one intent that would serve ALL, so the elite creep in and take over, thus controlling the people who insist on remaining divided.

Let it be known that, the leaders of any nation, simply reflect the consciousness of the inhabitants therein, for said leaders – religious, scientific, political and business – spring from among the people. If the people choose to remain divided, they deserve what they get

I feel inspired by this couple’s story! They are the type of Americans that make this country great! It is virtue that lifts us into the happy future! Many Americans are forced by their Christian parents to oppose virtue as if it is an evil, prideful, greedy lust! But joy is power and virtue is joy!

That is a Phenominal act of Philanthropy and I am happy to hear you have grouped with others to help fight human trafficking.

I do miss the old eBay though. The company is sure to fall very soon. It’s core values that were there have all but vanished. He bay now re-directs searches. I can put a search entry in with one of my listings titles and the search engine won’t find it. But when I took out half the title 505 listings showed up and I was finally able to locate my listing after review of 354 other listings. Anyway, we always had free pictures for listings, then new mgmt. comes in and begins charging the Sellers for their pics. Then 6 months later, eBay announces, look you now get free pictures. All eBay has done under this new Mgmt. is kill the Sellers and boost affiliates. eBay will al but crash and burn soon. All of us sellers are feeling it.

Anyway, miss you, yet understand you and your wife have much more important fish to fry. God bless you – : )

Billionaire !! hmmmm what i could do with just a fraction of that money .lol No more struggles .It would be great not to work my arse of every day just to make ends meet . But despite health issues etc…. i get through each day .To have all that money and be able to also help someone who needs a lil luck in their lives would be a wonderful thing . Good luck to these people ….with wealth one can do great things !!!! But all the money in the world cannot overcome some things . we need a cure for cancer ….will there ever be one ? I think not !!